Abstrakt
The character of Jesus in Juvencus's work shares many traits with Virgil's character of Aeneas: both are synecdochical heroes ready to lay down their lives for their community. But a vital difference is their access to (heroic) immortality: while Aeneas -just like Homeric heroes- could only aspire to achieve symbolic immortality post mortem, through his fame and impact within the tradition of his community, which he had to win the hard way with his heroic deeds, Jesus could enjoy true immortality as an inseparable part, and actually the climax of his story.
The traditional motif of the hero's hope for eventual immortality, typical especially of Homeric characters, is transferred to two characters presented in Juvencus's prologue and epilogue: Juvencus himself, as an example of a "hero poet", and Emperor Constantine as a "hero ruler". Just as the disciples of Jesus, they both can achieve immortality if they enter the hierarchic economy of passing on the virtus which originates from God the Father and is mediated by Jesus, and provided that they fulfil their missions.
As extradiegetic characters, Juvencus and Constantine open the hope of achieving immortality in the same way also for their contemporaries - the readers.
